Dear Editor,
Murfreesboro City Council is missing an opportunity to denounce the hateful rhetoric directed at the LGBTQ community. I have attended the Murfreesboro City Council’s Public Comment the past four months to support concerns of the LGBTQ community. According to city bylaws, the public can sign up and speak if time permits at end of council meetings. I have watched community members share their concerns with Mayor McFarland and Councilmembers on much more than the Boro Pride parade; they and I are deeply concerned about the hateful language, of the demonstrably false accusations of being groomers and molesters, directed at the LGBTQ community. At the February 3 meeting, the Mayor and Council members incorrectly fixated on Boro Pride as the source of our grievance and ignored our concerns about dangerous and false rhetoric aimed at the LBGTQ community. This bothered me deeply. I sought to exercise my right under city bylaws to speak but the mayor said no then launched in a soapbox speech of how the city had stood against white nationalists and insisted that the council doesn’t hate the LGBTQ community. Mayor McFarland says he “sees us.” PROVE IT!
— Phillip S.
